Page:The Queens of England.djvu/320

 ANNE BOLEYN, SECONP QUEEN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH. Anne Boleyn was the second daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, afterward created Viscount Rochford, and of the Lady Eliza- beth Howard, daughter of the celebrated Earl of Surrey, after- ward Duke of Norfolk ; and, according to Sir Henry Spelman, was born at Blickling Hall, in Norfolk. If the family of Boleyn were not originally among the ancient nobility of England, they intermarried into some of the highest of that class, for the grandfather of Anne, Sir William, married the co-heiress of the last Earl of Ormond, who brought him vast possessions, so that on the maternal side, at least, for two or three generations, Anne could claim alliance with some of the noblest houses in the land. The title of Rochford, which appertained to the family of Or- mond, was revived in Sir Thomas Boleyn, as were subsequently the titles of Ormond and Wiltshire. Great doubts exist as to the precise age of Anne Boleyn when she left England in the suite of the Princess Mary, sister of ' Henry the Eighth, when that princess proceeded to the solemn- ization of her nuptials with Louis the Twelfth of France. Sev- eral historians assert that Anne was then only in the seventh year of her age; but this can hardly be true, for what position could a female child fill in that courtly train? After the death of Louis, the Twelfth, which occurred in the February following his nuptials, and the marriage of his widowed queen with Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk, Anne Boleyn did not return with her, but re- mained in France for the completion of her education, and after some time is said to have entered the service of the queen of Francis the First, in which it is asserted by Camden, that she not only remained until the death of that queen, which occurred in 1524, but subsequently accepted the protection of the Duch- ess d'Alencon, sister of Francis the First, and afterward Queen of Navarre, so celebrated for her wit. If she returned to England 280